Monster Trade Imbalance Revealed In China's Car Industry

Some people are still worried about the Chinese trade imbalance. They should look at the car industry. Car-wise, China’s trade is shockingly imbalanced, a report of Chinas automotive industry association CAAM shows.In the first quarter of 2011, China exported 163,800 units. 83,200 of those were passenger cars, 80,600 were trucks and such.

In the same quarter, China imported 236,500 units. Passenger to commercial was not broken out, but one can safely assume that China imports very few cheap delivery vans.

While nothing to write home about, exports are up 53.92 percent in Q1, while imports rose 31.67 percent.

Prime export destinations of Chinese cars and trucks are interesting markets such as Algeria, Syria, Brazil, Chile, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Uruguay, Peru, Vietnam and Columbia (in that order.)

Prime importers (again in that order) are Japan, Germany, Korea, the U.S, Mexico, and the UK.

Value-wise, it’s hard to get a handle on. The report says the 83,200 cars exported were worth $584 million (that is $7000 per car) and the 80,600 commercial vehicles brought $1.359 billion (that’s $16,000 per unit – some trucks are large, some cheap little pickups.) A value for the imported cars was not given. But it’s typically higher end cars that get imported, the lower end ones are made locally. You can bet that money-wise the imbalance is much greater.

So where should you look when you need an example for where China is truly flooding foreign markets with cheap goods? Sex toys. China makes 70 percent of the world’s adult playthings. Did you ever wonder why that new vibrator has less stamina than an octogenarian? Now you know.